Out of Sight, Out of Mind

It was a simple idea: Let's put faces to the names of soldiers New Mexico sacrificed to the war effort. The cover of the Alibi this week is, in plainest terms, a reminder of what these last five years have cost.

Letting racism do its damage

By Jim Scarantino

A salty old lawyer, who’s now arguing before that appellate court in the sky, once bragged of his favorite trial tool. We were unwinding after court (as I've disclosed in this column before, I used to practice law) and the war stories, along with my beer and his scotch, flowed freely. He called his favorite trial tool “the hot poker.”

Medical students question exhibit's use of bodies without donor consent

By Marisa Demarco

UNM medical student Amanda Lo objects to the "Bodies Human" exhibit in Coronado Center. She's not grossed out by it. She harbors no religious qualms. But the people on display for shoppers to gape at in Albuquerque's mall did not give their consent to be filleted, propped up and posed.

Dateline: India--At least 50 people in India’s Kottayam district have reportedly lost their vision after staring at the sun for prolonged periods searching for an image of the Virgin Mary. St. Joseph’s ENT and Eye Hospital in Kanjirapally alone has recorded 48 cases of vision loss due to photochemical burns on the retina. The hospital began receiving patients with these abnormal symptoms on March 7. When doctors detected a pattern, they reported it to the district medical officer. The health department has since put up a billboard discounting the holy sunspot rumor and warning the faithful against exposing their eyes to direct sunlight. That hasn’t stopped believers, curious onlookers and foreign travelers from flocking to a rooming house near the town of Erumeli, where the hotel’s owner had claimed statues of the Virgin Mary have been crying honey and bleeding perfume. People have been flocking to the “blessed land”--hastily christened Rosa Mystica Mountain--for some time now, but the mad rush to view the solar image began earlier this month.

Benjamin Radford's "Karmas and Dogmas" [Re: The Radford Files, March 13-19] offers no useful information regarding the teaching of karma, but does reveal a great deal about Radford himself. He begins by criticizing a woman who "... embraced the superficial, pop culture version of karma, without understanding what it is." Later on he adds, "If you claim a belief in (and support of) an idea, it implies you actually understand what you say you believe." Radford might be reminded that before we reject an idea, we first ought to correctly understand the idea we're rejecting.